Neer systematically follows the story of napalm that originally empowered an often outnumbered American military to fight far abroad against the Japanese, and later, North Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese--only to become a byword for the pathologies of the military-industrial complex of the United States...Neer is often highly critical of the American use of napalm; yet his narrative of its origins, production and use over the past seven decades is not a jeremiad, but learned, fair and historically accurate...Neer is especially insightful in showing how Vietnam was a turning point in public perceptions about napalm...For all its infernal destructiveness and the terror it instills in hapless ground troops, this savage weapon has probably not changed the thinking behind age-old warfare all that much. --Victor Davis Hanson"Times Literary Supplement" (07/19/2013)
www.napalmbiography.com